Many fluids traveling through pipes or conduits contain magnetic field sensitive particles that tend to cling to the inside walls of the pipe. Such fluids include beer, wine, liquor, soda, juices, hydrocarbon fuels, and even water. After a certain amount of time, these particles must be cleaned out from the inside of the pipe to prevent severe blockage. Known processes to clean these deposits are cumbersome, expensive, and time consuming. One such known process is to periodically shut off the fluid flow in the pipe and manually scrub the inside of the pipes. An apparatus that would prevent this buildup would necessarily eliminate the inefficiencies created by the deposits.
Magnetic treatment of fluids is known in the prior art. Typically, a magnetic field that reacts with magnetic fluid sensitive particles within a fluid is applied to the fluid passing through a pipe. This coupling leads to a multitude of beneficial effects. One such beneficial effect is the mutation of the molecular structure of various hydrocarbons, such as propane, natural gas, gasoline, diesel, liquid oxygen, and acetylene. A circular hydrocarbon molecule exposed to such a field tends to routate into a cage or cubic octahedral arrangement, effectively causing small amounts of oxygen to be injected into the molecule. When ignited, the burn factor thus dramatically increases and the carbon monoxide emissions decrease, efficiently reducing the harmful environmental effect of burning such fossil fuels and increasing fuel efficiency. A second beneficial effect is the disorientation of various charged particles that tend to scale or deposit on the inner walls of a pipe. The disoriented particles will pass through the pipe and not deposit on the inner walls. Researchers have discovered that various forms of bacteria are magnetically charged and thus subject to the physical effects of magnetic fields. Such untreated magnetostatic bacteria commonly create the substantial blockage in fluid transport pipes previously mentioned.
Several devices have been developed that magnetically treat fluids flowing through pipes. These devices generally emit a magnetic field within the pipe to accomplish the desired function.
Hertzog, U.S. Pat. No. 4,946,590, discloses a clamp-on magnetic water treatment device that minimizes hard precipitate scale and lime deposit in a water fluid supply. Two significant embodiments are disclosed, both having a plurality of opposing magnets on each side of a pipe to be treated. The plurality of opposing magnets are stacked and/or serially aligned along the pipe with opposite polarities. Both embodiments further have a ferromagnetic outer housing that has a flat bottom and wings that extend diagonally outward from the pipe at an obtuse angle from the bottom. Such an apparatus is subject to various performance deficiencies. The opposing magnets create an unconcentrated but uniform magnetic field within the pipe. Much of the magnetic field, however, is wasted outside of the pipe, thereby forcing the device designer to use more magnets than are necessary to efficiently utilize the apparatus, thus driving up the ultimate manufacturing cost. Furthermore, the stacked magnets of Hertzog are specifically disclosed to be magnetized iron or ceramic magnets, each of which has a much shorter length of flux and Gauss field, as well as shorter life, than other magnets known in the art today. The ferromagnetic outer housing further serves only to limit the escape of magnetic flux lines from the apparatus. It does not redirect the magnetic field within the pipe, and thus has no significant effect upon the magnetic field within the pipe. Finally, Hertzog is disclosed to be useful only in treating water, the implication being that it is not designed to treat other fluids containing magnetic field sensitive particles.
Kulish, U.S. Pat. No. 4,605,498, also teaches a method and apparatus for magnetically treating liquids utilizing a plurality of magnets arranged about the periphery of a pipe. Similar to the Hertzog disclosure, such an apparatus also provides an unconcentrated, uniform magnetic field within the pipe and thus suffers the same design and performance problems as those of the Hertzog disclosure.
Accordingly, there is a great need for a device that can more efficiently inhibit the deposition of material from a fluid onto the walls of a pipe, as well as alter the molecular structure of charged particles within a hydrocarbon fuel passing though a pipe.